let's party on a monday!

so...

two things:

one: i never realized how crazy european people, especially italians, are about soccer until right now. i'm sitting in my dorm room reading and studying up for tomorrow's day of experiments and i find myself in the hysteria of italian pride for their soccer team's performance in the eurocup. as i sit here reading, i was following the game play by play not because i was watching the game but rather from the sounds and chants of the neighboring families all watching the game. every time they scored, i would be the first to know! most of the stores are closed tonight and all of the streets were deserted as the game was proceeding. i was really hoping italy would win because last week, after the italy v. croatia game (1-1) the entire city was depressed as if the world ended, and THAT was when they tied... so i'm extremely excited for italy to win because i'm looking forward to more games to come (i'm a new super obsessed soccer fanatic, didn't you know?). what's better is that now that the game is over, and spain won over croatia earlier, italy and spain are advancing from their bracket onto the eurocup, which is cause for celebration: monday night loud music in the streets everyone get drunk kind of celebration! I'm not kidding... music is blaring down the streets and people are practically running to the campo so they can start drinking and celebrating italy's victory (side note: my name in italian means victory so that should be fun to play off tomorrow) immediately. dear american football, you are officially kicked out of my heart for REAL football! that is all.

two: one thing that i can never get used to here is the kissing on the cheek thing that people do to greet good friends. don't get me wrong, i think it's great and i would love to be able to do it! i, for some unknown reason, am so bad at coordinating my face that i always seem to go in the wrong direction (i think each person is supposed to go to their right first...) so it's super awkward. my friends always nervously laugh at me but i know they are really concerned with almost actually kissing me xD culture shock to the max! but in reverse, haha.